


Stranger Encounter

by Secret_Identity03



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Casual, Domestic, F/M, Happy Ending, One Shot, Post-Season/Series 02, Season 3 never happened., Shopping Malls, badass eleven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22115293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secret_Identity03/pseuds/Secret_Identity03
Summary: Eleven and Br. Martin Brenner meet each other once again, but it was not in the way that they had expected.Not your typical 'Eleven meets Brenner again' fic.(Brenner was shopping for groceries when Eleven stumbled upon him.) Just domestic stuff... but with action! Whoo!This is just a random scenario that popped up in my head so I might as well pour it all out.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Stranger Encounter

**November 1987**

The party's first Halloween with the absence of trick-or-treating had been particularly hard for them. Prior to the festive season, the party had unanimously agreed not to partake in the sacred tradition after their embarrassingly disastrous attempts at doing so the year prior. _Because apparently fifteen was too old to be running around the streets begging for sugary concoctions._

After going through a phase of acceptance of their coming of age, the party had shifted their utmost attention away from the children's dress up game to the adult's dress up that is the cheesy annual school dance. For the first couple of years of their high school experience, they spent the majority of their annual costume budget on various candy bribing tools. Whereas their Homecoming outfits were originated from thrift stores, purchased using however much money was left. From this year onwards however, the cheesy school dance department would get the entirety of the party member's extensive outfits budget.

After weeks of procrastinating, Mike has finally managed to scrape up enough courage to ask El to go to Homecoming with him. Although it was his fifth time asking the love of his life out on to a dance, it did nothing to help him wear down his nerves. The others had insisted that there's virtually zero chance that El would turn him down. (They're dating after all...) Deep down he remembered that although the record of the girl agreeing to go to dances with him was 100%, his success rate of actually fulfilling the promise was actually only 75%. Of course, El had agreed to him this time as well.

 _Hopefully_ _that figure can be bumped up to 80% by the end of it. It would never be 100% though... it would never be..._

It didn't take long for the male party members to find their respective outfits at their local Starcourt mall, the girls however, had an entirely different story. Ever since huge public outcry over the opening of the mall back in '84, the mall has been steadily losing business and now only a handful of stores remained; leaving their choices very limited.

El vaguely remembered passing by a gargantuan mall filled to the brim with seemingly unlimited choices of outlet stores back when she was in Chicago. With their extended budget and some begging in which puppy eyes made an appearance, Jim reluctantly agreed to take the girls upstate. It was not without protest from the grumpy old man of course. 

"All those dresses that you wore previously are still perfectly fine! Why the hell would you need to buy new ones?!" Unfortunately for the chief, he had yet to read through the constitution of the great female species in which states that any dresses that had been worn previously must be considered absent for the rest of their lives.

After hearing the news that the girls (El) would be going to Chicago, Mike stubbornly demanded that he join them as well, much to the girls' dismay. Even after so many years, he was still fearful that if El was ever further than ten miles away from him that she would just disappear from his life forever. Fortunately for him, the chief was on board with the idea and was secretly thankful that he wouldn't be the sole victim to witness to a couple of teenage girls shopping for clothes. In the end, they came to a compromise in which Mike and Jim would shop separately from the girls to preserve the element of surprise that El had intended to have on Mike.

* * *

Upon arriving at the mall at least ten times larger than Starcourt, Jim gave the girls briefing on their meeting location and where to find them in case of emergency.

"Remember, just because you have the money, doesn't mean you have to spend it all." Jim said while pointing an accusation finger at the brunette while she just rolled her eyes. El had made quite a reputation after completely blowing her allowance for several consecutive months on clothes back when Max first took El to the mall.

"Got it, dad." she replied grudgingly, eager to get out of this conversation an dash into nearest outlet store.

"Also," the chief continued while pulling out his wallet and handing El an extra fifty dollar bill, "this is for groceries after you're done clothes shopping." 

"Seriously?" Max grumbled. Jim had been training El to buy groceries for the past few months now as part of her integration into society. This would be the first time she shopped for groceries in a supermarket that she's not familiar with.

"Stay with Max the entire time, okay?" he then turned to face Max, "If anything happens to her, Mayfield, I'll skin you alive! Got it?"

Taken back by the chief's threat, "Wow. Now I get how you feel all the time, Wheels."

Jim chuckled, "Alright, have fun you two! Mike and I will be at the electronics store."

And with that, the group parted ways to explore this abnormally large mall in a seemingly foreign city. Mike was pleasantly surprised by Jim's choice of shop to spend their time in. Back in Hawkins, the chief has always been known as an old school guy who refuses to adapt to modern technologies, especially computers. At times, he had even expressed distrust towards these 'boxes'.

Mike of course, being the ever curious soul that he is, questioned, "Hey uh, sir, do you mind if I ask you something?"

The chief raised an eyebrow at the boy, "You asking for my blessing?" Mike could have sworn that he asked extra louder than necessary, a lot extra...

The boy's face immediately turned crimson red and eyes shot wide open, almost reaching his hair line. "Wai- uh What? No! Wait, I mean... no, NO!" he blurted out, voice trembling with utter shock and disbelief.

The six foot tall bulky man burst into laughter, "I'm only joking kid!" He places a hand on the boy's shoulder while making no attempt at holding back his public display of amusement, "You should have seen your face!"

Jim's laughter has attracted the attention of a fair number of shoppers and Mike found himself feeling embarrassed in whole new way, "I hate you!" he said, half jokingly.

The chief's laughter died down a little, "Too bad kid, I kinda like you. Also, you're dating my daughter. Getting mocked at is part of the package deal mate, get used to it."

 _I kinda like_ you.

The chief had just admitted that he liked Mike... Although El had always said so, it was the only thing she said that he didn't truly believed... until now. The Chief of Police of Hawkins, the father of the love of his life, _likes_ him. He'll take the mocking any day!

Meanwhile, the girls had been bouncing between racks full of dresses, picking out the ones they liked and stacking it onto the ever growing Everest sized pile on their hands. El even had to secretly use her powers to prevent the mass of dresses from toppling over. She has gotten a lot stronger in the past couple of years and most casual activities like closing doors telekinetically or preventing the collapse of a miniature Empire State building on their hands no longer caused nosebleeds.

After they had deemed the amount selected sufficient, they made their way to the changing rooms and began a fashion show of their own with one being the judge of the other. The show went on for about an hour, slowly narrowing down their choices until the final contenders were pinned against one another and the winners chosen. After paying for their dresses, El neatly folded hers into an opaque bag to prevent her boyfriend from seeing them. She wanted the first time his eyes to lay on the dress that she had bought to be on the night of the dance.

They headed straight for the supermarket just across from the store afterwards, still laughing at the jokes that they had been telling each other since they entered the outlet store. Max grabbed a cart and started accelerating it towards the entrance before El suddenly grabbed hold of the front of the cart, changing it's direction slightly before speeding it down the freezer aisle.

"El! Slow down!" Max pleaded, struggling to recover with the jolt of the sudden acceleration. Just as she finished the sentence, the cart instantly came to a halt, causing Max to slam against the handle bar of the cart. "Shit! El!" Max scolded. There was no doubt that El had use her powers during that maneuver. Initially El had been forbidden to use her powers in public. However, after learning that El has been breaking the rule at least a hundred times a week and efforts of preventing so seemed futile, Hopper had resorted to changing the rule to making the use of telekinesis as discrete as possible.

"Eggos!" El celebrated before yanking the freezer door open and dumping a couple of boxes of mixed flavors into the cart. This has been one of the compromises that Jim had to make. If it was El who buys the groceries, she had the permission to buy a couple more boxes than he would.

Max sighed, "El and her Eggos, the inseparable couple till the end of time. Meanwhile Wheeler has been third wheeling this whole time..." she mocked.

She turned to shoot a glare at her friend, one lacking of anger of course, "Shut up!"

Max giggled, "So, would you rather be El Eggos or El Wheeler in the future?"

"MAX!"

Mockery aside, El Wheeler... Jane Wheeler... she likes the sound of that very much. Just the thought of it made her stomach filled with butterflies.

After picking up her weekly dose of Eggo waffles, they headed down the next aisle to pick up some fresh produce which had only been introduced to the Hopper's household a year ago when Joyce inevitably found out that the Hoppers had only been eating TV dinners this whole time after she was married into it.

Upon turning into the aisle, El was too busy picking out the freshest of vegetables from the shelves while walking sideways like a crab before being forced into an abrupt stop by running into someone. She whipped her head around and immediately began apologizing profusely.

"Oops! Sorry! So sorry sir!" Her eyes had yet to meet whoever she had just ran into yet. But-

"It's okay." the man replied. That voice sent chills down her spine. The voice she was ever so familiar with. The voice that was often accompanied with demands of actions. The voice that was often filled with threats and promises. Not jumping to conclusions just yet, she has heard a couple of people who sounded just like him since her escape and this should be no different. _Heck, the grumpy guy at the Starcourt jewelry store sounded just like him!_

Before El could even face of the source of the voice, the man had already turned away and walked further down the aisle and was scanning through the shelves. She was frozen in place by the shock of the voice and when her eyes landed on the side of the man's face that screamed familiarity, she audibly gasped. There stood Pap- No, Brenner, picking out which of the carrots were the freshest.

She knew that Brenner was alive since her last time in Chicago. Heck, she even visited him once in the void! Him being alive was not what was shocking to her at first, it was what he was wearing. For the entirety of her life so far, she had only seen Brenner in his black suit while rocking his iconic black tie. But this time, he was wearing a loose plaid T-shirt and shorts with a bandana holding down the front of his silvery white hair... _Wow._

Her first instinct was to panic, flail her arms around while running like a headless chicken until she was in the relative safety of Mike or Hop's embrace. However, Brenner's outfit today seemed to have calmed her down a little. And so did his actions... she had never pictured Brenner to be doing domestic stuff such as shopping for groceries. She carefully examined the man once again while collecting her thoughts that was scattered, still deaf to the world around her. 

"El... El!" Max almost yelled, tapping on her shoulder.

El snapped out of her stupor, "Uh..Huh?"

"Why are you standing still? And why do you look like you had just seen a ghost?" she questioned.

"What? Oh, it's uh... nothing." She then proceeded to scan their surroundings cautiously for possible ambush kidnappers and found nothing. The only other people around them were a couple of housewives pushing around their babies in a stroller. Her eyes landed back on the man in question, this time with peace in mind. He looked too casual to be setting up a trap right now but then again, the man is as cunning as a fox. She trusted her abilities and would not hesitate to unleash them in full power to inflict maximum damage in case of an assault.

Although the lab in Hawkins was shut down three years ago, the possibility of other labs around the country under the same program still posed a serious threat to her. There is certainly without a doubt that Brenner was still in control of the program and creating new subjects and possibly even trying to retrieve older ones? Even Dr. Owens had warned them about this. Also, would he recognize her anyway? She had grown quite considerably ever since that faithful night. Slightly wavy brunette strands reaching just below her shoulders, face and body matured to that of a woman (or model as the party and some of the jocks at school complimented). 

_There's no way that he would recognize me- Oh wait..._

She was too deep in her thoughts to realize that she had been staring at the man the entire time with her mouth agape and he was now staring back, equally as shocked. He had definitely recognized her. She took a deep breath, hoping to get out of this situation without bloodshed. She has a couple of points to make clear to him anyway. It was now _**her**_ time to make threats and promises. _**She**_ was the one in charge now.

"Eleven?" the man questioned, his voice slightly shaky. _Out of fear?_ She couldn't tell.

"Dr. Brenner." she straightened her body and replied as calmly as possible, "Wasn't expecting to see you here."

There was a slight pause which she suspected that he was struggling to find words, "How? How are you here?" he asked, voice still shaking.

"Huh?" she replied, visibly confused. Did he not know that she was alive? She thought she was the one that was supposed to be oblivious to the other one's well being.

"Reports stated that you were killed on that night, when you took on the beast..."

Her eyebrows raised, did Dr. Owens really declared subject Eleven's death on that night? Oh well. "Umm... then, well... Surprise!" she raised both of her arms, trying to be cheerful to see how the man would react.

Dr. Brenner merely flinched, fear was starting to show on the man's face which brought satisfaction her heart. She smirked in response to further assert her dominance over the situation. His mouth tried to open to talk but was immediately forced shut by an unseen force.

"You listen to me. I am in charge now and you will do exactly what I say. Am I clear?" she stated as she let go of her cheerful face and replaced it with a threatening one. She formed a pair of invisible handcuffs on the man's wrists, seizing them together behind his back and freezing his legs in place.

His body flinched in an attempt to get out of this predicament, "AM I CLEAR?!" she shouted. After realizing that chances of escaping was futile, he reluctantly nodded at the girl.

"El, what is going on?" Max asked.

"Max, take these to check out please." she pleaded as she handed over the fifty dollar bill. "Wait for us at the meeting point later."

"Umm, okay." she didn't bother to question further around the jittering man beside her, seemingly tied up with invisible rope.

"Follow me." she decreed, directed at the man. She didn't even give the man's muscles time to move before his legs started moving on their own, out of his control. Brenner was appalled by the girl's incredible power after realizing her nose wasn't even bleeding.

She brought Brenner to the specified electronics store to meet up with the two boys. Both of them were busy fiddling around the model of a new generation of Supercoms.

"Dad, Mike." she called, prompting them to turn around.

"Hey Elle, how are you doi- Owh, WHAT THE FUCK?!" Jim shouted while Mike just stared on with shock. 

"Don't worry, no other bad men. And he can't move." she smiled, seemingly proud of her catch.

The duo spent a better part of a minute going through the thought process that El went through minutes prior. Then finally, Jim sighed, "Staff room." he gestured towards a door opposite of the electronics store. After the group made their way in, picking up Max along the way, the door was shut and locked behind them. She turned around to face the doctor who firmly pressed down onto the seat.

"Alright, let's make this short and simple. I'm here to make a deal. Got it?" she asked.

The man nervously nodded. He felt the grip on his lips began to loosen, allowing him to speak. "Loud and clear." he replied, voice trembling.

"You will stay out of out my, my friends or my family's lives for the rest of eternity, and in return, I will spare your pitiful life and stay out of yours as well." she demanded.

"We should just kill him already, why should he be allowed to live?!" Mike protested, making his hatred towards the man known.

"He's a government scientist. The death of someone as high profile as he is couldn't easily be covered up anywa-" Jim reasoned.

"Every man deserves a second chance." El cuts in, "Do we have a deal?!" she demanded the answer from the shocked man sitting in front of them.

Brenner nodded vigorously, "Yes, yes we have a deal."

She smiled, "I figure you should know the consequences of breaking the deal as well. It will not be your life on the line, but the lives of the others that you love. Your family, and... your _daughter_." she raised an eyebrow at the last word, emphasizing her knowledge of the importance of that figure in Brenner's life.

The doctor's eyes widened and face paled upon hearing the word, "Yes, deal! We have a deal. Please don't hurt my daughter!" he pleaded.

She beamed him a smug face, "Very well then. Just so you know, I am no longer the weak and scared girl you tortured all those years ago. If you touch me, my friends or my family even a little. I will make your life a living hell." She was slightly disgusted at the threat that she made. There's no way she would bring herself to hurt or even kill an innocent young girl or slaughter an entire family, but the threat must feel real for it to work.

Satisfied with the man's reaction and promises, "Now, GO. And never, I mean, NEVER, come into our lives again."

And with that, the grip on the man was removed and he scrambled out of the room in the blink of an eye. With a flick of her head, El gave the man a boost of speed upon leaving the room which resulted in him face planting the solid marble floor in front of a crowd of hundreds.

She let out a sigh of relief, slamming the door shut before turning back and facing the other.

"That was intense." Max commented.

El smiled, "I was not expecting this to be how we would meet again to be honest."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Mike asked.

"Well, I was more expecting him to come for me in Hawkins." she replied.

"Oh." he replied sadly. Saddened by the fact that she had been expecting him to intrude her life once again for the longest time.

"To be honest, it was nice seeing him in his casual style. Brenner in his natural habitat." Everyone chuckled at that.

"Are you sure he will keep his promise?" Mike questioned.

She sighed, looking down. "Maybe. But if he tries anything again, I can just snap his neck in the void." 

"Her." Jim intejected.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"Her. You said you would target her daughter instead of him." Jim said with a smirk.

She glared at him, "You seriously think I would do that?! Is that how you view me?!" she scoffed.

He burst into laughter, "Woah! Chill! You don't wanna accidentally snap my neck now, do you?" 

El rolled her eyes. 

Mike gently grabbed her into a hug and their lips met. "Don't worry, if he comes again, I'll protect you." he said with a smile.

"Or is it the other way around?" she mocked.

"Ouch! My ego is hurt!"

She returned the loving smile, "Promise?"

"Promise."

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a random shower thought that should not be taken seriously. But I hope you enjoyed it though!  
> Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
